Scarced Kardz: To Kill A Sue
by spoonerdog123
Summary: A semi-parody of a certain Yu-Gi-Oh Gameboy game, known as "The Sacred Cards" – the plot of which is basically 'Battle City gets an OC Sue Self-Insert'. Part adventure, part goofball, featuring dueling (in a game where 700 ATK is a terribly powerful monster at the start), stupid type matchups, Sue-hunts, rage quits, fourth wall death, and of course SCARCED KARDZ.
1. HERRO ENTREES

**Disclaimer: I don't own Yu–Gi–Oh!, and I definitely don't own the Gameboy game, 'Yu–Gi–Oh: The Sacred Cards'.**

This was written in part as a tribute to the terrifyingly dull spectacle that was the game 'Yu–Gi–Oh: The Sacred Cards', in part as an art trade with TheGaboEffects over on dA, and in part as one enormous 'TAKE THAT!' at Yu–Gi–Oh Mary Sues. I'll be playing the game whilst writing this fic – but you don't need to have to have played it at all to laugh at the sheer stupidity of the whole thing.

**Warnings: **Obviously has an OC in it, and aforesaid OC is… well, they _try _to be the horrible Sue they were in the games. I'll give them points for that, they do try and stay in character. But they fail miserably (fortunately for the readers, I believe), because they get ignored. The reason for this is that there was always a sense in the game that you were just kind of playing through all these dumb battles that didn't matter, grinding for no real reason, and that anything exciting was always happening to someone else.

Probably a good idea to warn you: The fourth wall is annihilated.

**Feedback: **Spooner likes reviews. She likes concrit especially, but feedback in general is quite appreciated. It lets her know that people actually read her crackfics - just careful if you _do _decide to drop her a kind word, seeing as she's awfully talkative...

**About Notes: **If you see a (1), you'll find that the corresponding '1.' at the bottom of the fic will contain a note. Usually, these will be explanations for things such as (but not limited to) in–game plot holes, character naming, dueling rules that are rather different to the actual game rules and/or the manga rules, oddly OOC character dialogue, and 'frustrating game incidents' (the game does not signpost its intentions very well, so these occur frequently – I spent hours in some sections getting annoyed because I didn't know what to do next, and pretty much trying _everything _to get to the next level.).

Without further ado…

* * *

**Scarced Kardz, Chapter One: HERRO ENTREES**

**WHAT IS YOUR NAME? **

"PCICL!" (1) , the bundle of pixels bawls back at the underlined text. Thisbeing, if one can call underlined text a being, has been irritating it for the first thirty seconds of its admittedly short life.

**ARE YOU SURE?**

"Yes!" A pause. "You're gonna ask me if I'm a boy or a girl next, aren't y–"

**BING!**

The pixels find themselves abruptly rearranged, now taking the form of a boy with black hair that falls to the centre of his back. He's wearing a baseball cap composed of a shade of orange that hurts the retinas, bright blue jeans that clasp rather tightly around his legs (and for whatever strange reason, don't have a zip, buttons, or any conceivable way to get them off), two sky blue spheres on his feet that he assumes to be his shoes, and a horribly orange... let's not jump to conclusions about that item of fashion.

'Straitjacket' is _such _a nasty word.

Moving along, and it should be pretty obvious by now: This guy is a blatant Mokuba ripoff. It's almost as if whoever shoved those pixels into that form decided to find out why exactly the CEO's brother never did wear a hideous cap - or a bright orange... _jacket..._ for that matter. And now they've found out, and for some reason unfathomable, decided to keep the abomination. Never mind what the higher ups have to say about this.

Needless to say, the boss wasn't exactly impressed when _he _found out what the programmer had done. There's of course a reason that 'Character Name' never did get his own fanart - beyond all the _other _problems 'Character Name' has. Like his terribly godly powers of Plot Protection, which we'll probably get along to sometime during the next chapter. Or the fact that he literally has no intelligence, yet somehow hasn't blown up the world as we know it yet. Or- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

At any rate, PCICL looks around at his surroundings in some annoyance – he's in a bedroom that he automatically assumes to be his, because that's how it always is. There's some voice whispering at the inside of his brain, telling him all about his life, and his friends, but he refuses to listen to any of that meaningless jabber (or, indeed, the repeated commands to 'take Kaiba's pants'). After all, he's a bunch of pixels - he doesn't _have _a life.

This is exactly why self-inserts are _never _a good idea; because if this PCICL guy happened to be you, which he thankfully isn't, you'd have no life. Cue the rather tuneful noises of Gameboys everywhere being introduced to the wonders of the abyss, the rubbish truck, or perhaps the abyss that lies _within _the rubbish truck; you get the picture.

And, as though to add insult to injury...

"I-I'm not a guy!"

Yes, PCICL. We hear your pain, even though you're only a bunch of pixels and definitely not a self-insert.

I think we can all agree here: With such a cast of bishies as Yu-Gi-Oh! has, limited gender options definitely su-

**CRASH! **

No, that's not the sound of the game crashing, much as many players by this stage are probably hoping it will. The idea of a game 'crashing' is in itself a misnomer; a dead cartridge generally emits a small, dull whine in the moments before its death. Even a CD, butchered under the saw-blade of the malfunctioning CD player, will at best produce a noise somewhat similar to the first note a two-year-old maestro-to-be will ever produce on their one sixty-fourth violin. Indeed, the only _true _way a game may crash is of course for one to load it upon some high - speed vehicle (preferably driven by a drunkard, a kamikaze pilot who'd like another go, or by the individual known as 'Yami Marik'), and then have it steered directly towards a large rock, a building, a mountain, or ultimately the ground... but I digress.

The point is that the **CRASH! **sound is not formed by the 'crashing' of the game, but instead by the door in PCICL's room. Of course, an inanimate object does not simply _decide _to make such a noise - the decision to do so is caused by the teenagers on the other side quite casually strolling through the wood, leaving two non–player character – shaped holes in their wake as they calmly defy all laws of physics.

PCICL, most coolly and logically, jumps six foot in the air and lets loose with a girly scream. "AIEEE!"

...Come now, it's not like the situation was making any _sense. _Why, then, should PCICL's reaction to something as senseless as this be at all sensible?

Is your head done in yet?

Don't worry, it gets worse from here.

"The Battle City Tournament is on today, PCICL!" A plastic smile accompanies narrowed eyes on the blonde; _really _not a good expression, especially not for a fixed one. Sure, the result certainly looks as though ripped from the front cover of a certain manga volume (and likely has), but the thing is, people's expressions change with what they say - yes, even in an anime. Maybe it's a rather sporadic occurrence, but they do alter. The major problem with this... _thing..._ is that no matter what he's saying, that look gives PCICL (or indeed, any person with a brain cell) the impression that he's quietly plotting a murder, and will likely execute this cunning plan at some point in the next six seconds. What is perhaps even more disturbing is the way that the as–yet–unnamed teenager stays perfectly still as he speaks – no hand gestures, no awkward foot shifting as he should probably be doing considering the circumstances, nothing. PCICL waves a hand a few times in front of his nose, but he doesn't even blink; just continues to recite his line, eyes unnerving.

The voice in the pixel's head tells him that this is Joey, and that he is PCICL's friend, his friend, his _friend_; but the boy blatantly ignores it. No way would he ever be friends with someone as lifeless as this. In fact, he even decides to call this 'Joey' character an it.

However, for the sake of convenience, we'll be calling Joey, well... 'Joey'.

Wow, what a terrible way to give a character's nam- I _mean_, what a surprise. Who would have thought that Joey was really Joey? Didn't you think that, just for a moment, he might have been Joey and not actually Joey? Or maybe Joey and not Joey or Joey?

...Never mind.

As soon as the zombie has finished, there is a slight pause; then, a gentle _bip_, and his companion (tricolored hair and larger–than–should–be–legal pink eyes) looks directly over PCICL's head. If anything, this one looks even more brain-dead than the first; PCICL squints, the player probably squints as well, but neither find any sign of life in that frozen pose. He looks as though sculpted from plastic - his hair doesn't even move in the cold air swishing through the hole behind him. (2)

"Good morning, PCICL. Have you made your deck?"

His jaw doesn't even move with his syllables, impossible as that may sound - yet another logic - defying mistake in the general mistake that is - well, whatever the heck _this _is. It's best not to think about it; think too long, and your brain will probably shut down from the mental overload.

The head-voice growls softly in PCICL's ear, muttering that this is Yugi, and PCICL's friend too; but the pixel bundle again remains oblivious to it. For the sake of convenience, we aren't going to do that.  
We're just going to call Yugi 'Yugi'.

Creative, I know. But think, it's slightly more creative than this story's plot!

_Bip._

"Hey, my deck is something special." Yes, you can even hear the full stop in that – the blonde clearly shows little enthusiasm in his 'deck', whatever a 'deck' is. PCICL flounders a few seconds, then goes to try and get the guy's attent–

_Bip._

But he takes a second too long to recover; Joey's gone back on the offensive in a heartbeat (or is it heart_beep_?), and there's not much PCICL can really do about it. "It took me all night, but it's the best ever. PCICL, did you put together a good deck?"

The boy stiffens, though that's obviously nothing compared to the statues that are apparently his 'friends' right now. "Wait. Are you actually asking _me_ a que–"

_Bip._

"Huh? Are you kidding me? Better get it together."

Now's probably not the best of times to note that even Joey's voice seems robotic - almost how that 'Microsoft Sam' thing says whatever you typed in. Really, the only difference is that Joey doesn't say the offensive things you probably liked to type into that bar when you were six. He's not funny, just monotonous.

"There's still time. Make it stronger as you battle," Yugi agrees, his words carrying a note of 'happy', despite his face still wearing a 'I'm determined to tear your head off' sort of look, and his voice carrying enough emotion to bore the horns off a dragon; a difficult task, because the dragon doesn't even exist in the first place.

...Yeah, it's not very encouraging.

"Um–"

_Bip. _

"Okay, let's get going. Don't want to be late."

With that final word from Joey, the duo both turn (at _exactly the same time_, how is that even possible?) and go back the way they came (whichever way that was), leaving the bundle of pixels utterly alone. He sighs, looking around at his surroundings; they're pretty crammed. To be honest, the only interesting thing in the room is a laptop screen, blinking dully in a corner...

LAAAAAPTOP!

Oh, sweet laptop, thy gorgeous screen aglow with fangirl's fantasy! Please, honor us all with pictures to burn our retinas and sweetly sicken our minds! Indulge us in paintings of somewhat questionable nature! We bow before you in our darkened bedrooms; and now, make this fic somewhat tolerable with thy blessing: Hot bishie on bishie action!

...You forget, this is a Spooner story.

And also, this game destroys 'bishies' from the inside out.

At any rate, accessing the device in the hope of finding images of a questionable nature doesn't work; every time PCICL attempts to do so, he finds himself sitting on the bed, understandably disorientated. Evidently, the only option for him is to flip his homework table upside down, do as the head-voice is repeatedly telling him to, and walk out the d–

* * *

"…Eh?"

PCICL quite literally just walked out the door, and found himself mysteriously teleported into the middle of the road, and, even more improbably, slap bang in the middle of a crowd, standing just behind Joey and Yugi. Naturally, his two plastic zombie companions don't notice this wonderful defiance of elementary physics; they just stand in front of him, perfectly still.

_Bip._

The blonde's jaw moves, though of course no other part of him does. "Hey, look at that. Everyone's here already. Heh, look at all the tough duelists." Looking around at the other members of the brain–dead crowd, PCICL suppresses the urge to shudder; he's here for a _reason_, he knows that much, and he can't run until he knows exactly what's going on here. Besides, he has a strange feeling that even if he wanted to, he'd be unable to run at this point…

_Bip._

"FELLOW DUELISTS, WELCOME TO BATTLE CITY!" The brunette has quite randomly appeared in the middle of the road, for absolutely no logical reason that PCICL can fathom. Much like the two weirdos flanking the boy, he too holds his challenging expression absolutely rigid; it's set in the sort of look a top-notch assassin might give their victim right before the kill, when they look down upon his prey and think something along the lines of '_Gotcha_'.

In other words, the sort of look every little fangirl interprets as _'Sexy'._

"Let me explain the Tournament rules," he begins, and PCICL hears the blonde in front of him distinctly mumble a mutinous response.

"How about _not?_"

Odd; his hair now seems to ripple in the breeze, shoulders rising and falling as he breathes, in and out, in and out. His voice grumbles, it's got emotion to it.

Impossible as it sounds, he's alive.

Alive, in a crowd of computer generated zombies.

* * *

_Bip._

_"_The Tournament takes place throughout Domino City," the brunette's saying, but PCICL's no longer interested in that, or any of the following long speech. (3) The idea that the guy in front of him might actually be human is far more likeable.

Tentatively, the little bundle of pixels taps the thug's shoulder, presuming that if the blonde happens to be brain-dead idiot, he won't react. "Erm, did you say something?"

To his infinite surprise and joy, the blonde actually looks over his shoulder, face making real human expressions as he speaks; for instance, a wry smile pulls at the corners of his lips. "Yeah, I did. Name's Joey, pleased to meet ya." A head tilt towards the kid with the tri–colour hair. "And that's Yugi. When he's being normal, he's a nice guy."

_Bip. _The beep sounds in the background every so often as the brunette rattles on and on, but neither of them pay much notice to it.

"So, what was going on in my bedroom?"

A pause, then a frown. "Not sure. What _was _going on in your bedroom?"

Any idiot can see that Joey's lying, he's got such an honest face that it's obvious, but PCICL is... well, not very good at emotions. Before the bundle of pixels can explain, the blonde gives a curt nod in the brunette's general direction; "See that guy? That's Kaiba. Trust me, when he's behaving normally, he's much more of a douche." A grin. "Maaaan, he's going to be_ furious_ that The Controller's making him say things like that."

"What Controller?", PCICL blinks, sensing a possible new plot to go and be a Sue for.

Joey's grin fades by about ten watts; "Did I say 'Controller'? What Controller?"

"Yeah, that's what _I _asked."

"Gee, maybe we should go and find out."

An awkward silence follows, made even more awkward by Kaiba randomly bawling out his final line.

"Now fellow duelists... Scatter throughout Battle City!"

The brunette's gone as quickly as he came, stalking off in the opposite direction to KaibaCorp for no good reason, and Yugi turns robotically on the spot, staring at a point above PCICL's head. "It's…"

_Bip._

Joey stiffens, expression going all axe–murderer again. "Yeah, you bet. Even us, we're rivals from now on. Try to hang in to the end, Yugi and PCICL."

_Bip_, goes the beep thing; and the blonde twitches a second.

"Hey, don't be so down on yourself, PCICL. Buck up and get it together."

_Bip._

Yugi continues to stare at PCICL's ridiculously sized hat, his gaze fixed and unblinking. "Yeah, let's go for it, PCICL. Once you've collected all the cards, let's meet up. We should get together at my Grandpa's toy shop."

_Bip._

"Yeah, okay, we'll do that. All right, I'm off. Both of you, don't lose until the finals. See you!"

And just like that, Joey is gone, Yugi standing stiff against the retaining wall. PCICL knows that there must be _something _he's supposed to do; in his simple world, there's always an objective, a plot.

And yet...

And yet, no–one will duel for now; they stare into space, blandly repeating six-syllable lines. They all say that the duels will start at nine o'clock; but the clock at the fountain is stopped at one minute to nine. With no conceivable way to bring time forwards (vandalizing is obviously out of the question when the hands are painted on the clock), it looks like the little bundle of pixels is stuck. (4)

Stuck, in a really, _really _dumb place, with really dumb people and a really dumb card game. Of course, it should be obvious from the adjective usage that neither of the latter are as dumb as the dumb that is the place, all two hundred stupid crammed up two hundred metres of a suburb he doesn't care about anyway, a place with too many loading scr- I mean, random blackouts.

RAGE.

* * *

**Notes:**

1. 'PCICL' in this case stands for "**P**rint **C**learly **I**n **C**apital **L**etters", the name I give to the lead character in any roleplaying game.

2. The descriptions here are not exaggerated; they are the actual character poses and expressions seen in the game. The dialogue is also ripped straight from the game – as a general rule, the majority of characters look better when they aren't talking.

3. Kaiba's long speech in full is hilariously OOC: _"Let me explain the Tournament rules. The Tournament takes place throughout Domino City. Wherever duelists meet in the city... That shall be where the duels take place. Duelists may play using only their own decks. The loser must turn over one rare card to the victor. Eight winning duelists will enter the final round. The final stage is hidden somewhere in town. Each of you duelists has received a locator card. You must defeat others and get their locator cards. When you have gathered six locator cards... You will have the map to the final duel stage. You may duel with those puzzle cards at stake. In other words, only those who win duels... And obtain the six locator cards will earn the right to get up on stage for the finals. The Tournament commences at nine a.m. sharp. Now fellow duelists... Scatter throughout Battle City!"_

Much as I'd like to say that I was just joking about that being in the game, I'm not.

4. This is the first of the Frustrating Game Incidents: Right at the start, you get stuck here. You don't know what you're meant to do, or where you're meant to go - in the end, you just sort of bumble around and hope for the best. If you can tell me how you get past this stage in the game, you get a cookie for remembering the details of a game this old.


	2. TIEM TO DROOL

**Author's Note:** Watch out! The first chapter got edited a whole heap to incorporate more lulz, more plot, and there's some important things that have been changed in there. _If_ you read the original version (which wasn't around that long – it appeared from Sunday 17th March to Monday 18th March), you'd be well advised to at least skim-read the edited version.

**Scarced Kardz, Chapter Two: TIEM TO DROOL  
**

_PCICL walks forwards._

_PCICL turns around and walks forwards._

_PCICL turns back the other way and walks forwards._

_Much rage had on the part of The Player._

_DS introduced to floor._

_-:-_

* * *

PCICL stares blankly at the wall, wondering whether or not it's the key to the objective. It isn't, he decides; no, the key to the objective is... what?

'Duel'-ing?

'Pressing R'?

Running around bumping into randoms?

Oddly, it's this last approach that seems to work – well, sort of. When he, in a moment of frustration, whacks Yugi over the head for spouting exactly the same sentence the sixth time (PCICL's either an angry fangirl or partially controlled by an angry fangirl, after all - he forgot which one), a weird little chime plays, and the zombie shuffles off. Attempts to thump others with non-ridiculous hair are fruitless; they continue to rabble and rant about how they don't have any time for being thumped, they _never _have any time, they cry out the most bizarre of excuses as they doge the swung Duel Disk with amazing agility–

HOLY MOLEY, DOES THAT GUY HAVE HIS SHIRT OFF? INDECENT EXPOSURRRREEEE

A pause for drooling, then he continues that thought:

ALERT ALERT ALERT! CODE RED! CODE RED!

With a decidedly unmasculine shriek of rage, the bundle of pixels goes running over to the offender in a very rare moment of aggression, and gives the criminal an almighty crack across the face with the plastic Duel Disk.

"How DARE you run around with no shirt! Only Yugi's allowed to do that! And possibly Kaiba!" In an absolutely spectacular leap, he makes up for his severe height disadvantage, then grabs the guy's–

Collar?

…Wait a sec!

The guy's not shirtless at all; he's wearing a sky blue tunic, a shapeless monstrosity that would have made him look almost girly, in a tomboy sort of way – if it hadn't been for the rough cord it was tied around the waist with, and the multiple patched, bloody, and torn spots in the thing. PCICL looks at the bunch of fabric for several seconds in shock; then, as calmly as he possibly can, he lets go. Following the _thud _that his blob–shoes make as they regain contact with the ground, long, awful seconds pass in silence.

PCICL, rather sheepishly, looks up at whoever he tried to hit.

Big mistake.

The scarred fisherman is, unfortunately enough, staring directly at him, and for one awful moment PCICL has to wonder if that guy heard the wild scream. He's standing still, sure – but there's something about him that hints a military sort of discipline, and the air is quiet. There's a very real swollen spot on his cheek, slowly turning purple to form a bruise. If he happens to be sentient… well…

PCICL decides that he's gonna absolutely _die _if this guy is sentient, providing that (a) death is physically possible for a bunch of pixels, and (b) the fisherman decides that he'd like to stab the aforementioned pixels. Judging from his expression, the latter condition seems quite likely to occur. PCICL immediately tries for diplomacy, but no words seem to come out of his dry mouth.

"Erm. Um."

His only reply is crack of the knuckles that may or may not have been in character for the fisherman, and a savage grin follows it – there's no way to tell if it's a real emotion, or a fake piece plastered across the guy's face. There's a glint in those black eyes, a glint of understanding as to what PCICL was about to do, and a glint of malice as to what the stranger is now about to do to PCICL. (1)

Needless to say, the kid's never been happier to see a mouth not moving in sync with words in his life (which is of course hasn't been a very long time).

So, the teen says his line (something about rivals and blah blah I'm gonna totally thrash whoever challenges me blah), that awful grin barely fading; and hey presto, a chime goes off! To PCICL, this indicates that he must be be doing _something _right - though he can't be sure if it's because of his own perverseness, or because he's just come within talking range of the people with weirdo hair. Weirdo hair, because this idiot has a hairdo that looks a bit like Yugi's – well, if Yugi one day had the bright idea of sticking his hair in a toaster and miraculously scorched and electrified it, whilst somehow not burning it off.

At any rate, it appears in PCICL's mind that hitting things + weirdo hair = good thing – a _very _good thing, because it's an equation, which adds about a million onto the 'good thing' side as a bonus. Clearly, the correct move here is to thump the everlasting cheeseballs out of every single character with weirdo hair - except Joey, because he can't find Joey. So, with only the faintest hint of trepidation now (they're just zombies, he can do whatever the hell he likes to them, they won't remember because they don't have brains), PCICL goes around and whacks the four whose hairstyles are weird enough that they will allow him to hit them – _thunk, bang, crash, wallop_ – and then he goes off to post about it on Facebo–

* * *

Ohhhh, wait, he's back on the bed.

Muttering mutinously to himself, he walks out of his bedroom. Maybe there's an internet café somewhere–

And _what the hell_, why is he now randomly out on the street? It's even a different street from the one he ended up on last time!

RAGE!

It's not a blinding fog that takes PCICL like it was with the fisherman guy, this is far worse than that. This is a snapping of sanity, a delicate part of the little bundle of pixels's psyche shattering into hundreds of tiny bits, and giving a whole new meaning to the term 'anger management problem'.

"Hold your horses, PCICL! You can't duel ye–"

Yelling curses at the top of his lungs, PCICL goes speeding forwards, attacking the thug in front of him like a wildcat – though this has about as much effect on the other teen as a kitten might have on Godzilla, it's the thought that counts. And boy, does PCICL have a few thoughts to think loudly in this guy's direction! He's sick of that repetitive, stupid dialogue telling him to wait, he's sick of that smart–alec smile, he's sick of the way this idiot stalks him tirelessly and waits in front of his house, he's sick of that stupid pointy hair and those big brown eyes and just EVERYTHING about this guy, he hates it, he hates it, he hates–

"Huh?"

He turns in confusion - he must have missed on one of his punches, his momentum carrying him forwards – now he's in a different area of Domino, and not entirely sure how he got there. So, the bundle of pixels walks forwards, hoping that something will happen.

And that's about when PCICL's face is introduced to a wall.

_Again._

"Oh good! Battle City's started!"

The voice is fake as fake can be, and PCICL forces himself to resist a powerful urge to punch Joey in his silly smirking face. He's at least normal from time to time, after all; and that lean, athletic frame hints that should PCICL hit him, the blonde will be more than happy to reply in kind.

…Still, there's someone the bundle of pixels wants to thump a bit more, someone whose butt he'd like to send to kingdom come very, very much indeed. With an odd little giggle, he turns, and walks back the way he came.

* * *

After some frustration, which is probably the biggest understatement of the year, PCICL reaches his victim, kicking the brunette directly in the groin. "Take that, ya zombie!"

One eyebrow raises in slight sarcasm, but aside from that the target barely shifts, his plastic smirk never wavers.

"I'm no duelist, but I can help you train."

"Hey, you actually said something different for once– wait, _what?_"

"Duel!"

Suddenly the world's gone, replaced by a brown room, the walls covered in badly pixelated hieroglyphs. The 'duelist' stares in frustration at the cards in his hand.

"…300 ATK? _Seriously? _Come on, at least gimme some four–digit numbers!" Of course, he's making up this trash talk right now, he honestly knows nothing about the game – but the brunette facing him looks surprised at least.

"My turn!", his opponent howls – and a _monster_, a rather ugly thing, comes barreling towards him. Good thing it's so pixelated that PCICL can't see half the details, and also that it's roughly the same size as a skinny teddy bear, eh? (3)

PCICL still screams anyway, even though the thing stops a good four metres away from him. He's got no clue how to play this game, and he's got no idea on what the hell he's meant to be doing, but he at least understands that the monster's going to be more than happy to tear his throat out. His headvoice growls that a well–placed monster will take this one out, but PCICL is quite literally clueless as to what the rules of the game entail. I mean, his enemy isn't even giving him clues! How can he possibly be cluefull! (And if that's not a word, he decides, then it _should _be!)

Then again, doesn't _need _to know the rules, because the headvoice knows all of them. It's guiding him, weirdly enough, telling him how and where to topdeck, which monsters to draw, how to cheat, and–

And PCICL doesn't want that. Just to spite the headvoice, he deliberately draws a terrible card. With this hand, there's nothing he can do; so he does nothing, folding his arms and, after some confusion with how to say it, he eventually declares the end of his turn.

"Attack!" The 700 ATK monster on Trista– no, _his opponent's_ side of the field, mustn't listen to the headvoice - pokes him. PCICL would have laughed at the pathetic nature of that attack – that is, if the creature's sharp claws hadn't cut through the fabric of his shirt, nicking his side. No real injury yet, but the bundle of pixels is left with a nasty feeling in his side, one that he'd imagine to be 'pain'.

The enemy places a card in his duel disk, another monster shows up. "And again!", his enemy calls out - another poke, another cut.

PCICL's turn comes around now, and he decides to stop trolling the headvoice - after all, if this game's somehow dangerous in some way, he doesn't want to lose.

_Tell me what to do._

The headvoice growls out that since his monsters can't hope to compete with seven hundred attack points, he should place a card sideways in a certain spot on the Duel Disk - no, not _that _one, that one! After some confusion, he does so, and his monster stands, ready to defend, giving the novice a strange sense of comfort.

"Erm, turn end?"

Not even the headvoice could have known that placing a card sideways apparently puts the monster in attack position; the game's just that random.

"My turn!"

The enemy plays another card, and all three of the monsters attack, two leaving more cuts, one destroying PCICL'S summoned creature and cutting its owner. The vicious cycle continues, and PCICL's 'life points' are ever so slowly being hacked to bits… as is his body. Before long, he's bleeding ridiculous amounts of from the number of holes poked in him by the opposing monsters, all the colours of his skin, his eyes, his hair, his horrendous outfit dripping onto the floor. It's absolute torture, and he can feel the headvoice getting more and more frustrated by the minute, the bundle of pixels is slowly dying away and there's nothing he can do but reach for his deck again and again–

The opponent grins. "You are out of LP!" (5)

"What the _hell _is 'LP' supposed to me-"

_Bip._

* * *

_Why is PCICL drawing such bad cards?_

_The Player is not amused._

_Try again? (Y/N)_

_Y_

* * *

PCICL rolls off the bed, slightly bemused – given the number of times his reality had broken the logical laws of reality prior to this, he guesses it was somewhat expected. Checking around only shows that (a) he's definitely unhinging mentally and (b) no-one remembers what he did to him.

Conclusion: He can thump as many randoms as he likes with little–to–no repercussions, providing he avoids the thug right outside the door.

Ohhh, this is gonna be _fun._

Gut-wrenching, life-destroying, zombie-smashing_ fun._

* * *

The first idiot doesn't even know what hit him; the sharp side of the Duel Disk smacks him in the back of the head, and just like a zombie, the guy turns and-

Oh, _god._

This one doesn't even have a face, not a proper one. Just features that look like they were drawn on with a permanent marker. PCICL feels suitably ashamed of hitting an invalid, ashamed enough to make sure that when the guy (impossibly enough) challenges him to a duel and he's back in that room, the bundle of pixels deliberately draws all the wrong cards and tries to lose (though he's still got no idea on _how _to lose, he manages quite well anyway), colours fading along with the last of his compassion, pain racking his frame.

Suddenly, survival instincts kick in, he's drawing decent cards and stabbing holes in his opponent over and over. It takes minutes, long drawn out minutes, and PCICL's voice is hoarse with all the shouting he's been doing by the time it ends.

Now he's back in the real world, so he pockets the other guy's wallet with a good three thousand bucks in it, swipes a half-decent card, and-

And the other guy's standing up quite casually, clothes rustling. "Thanks for saving me, bro."

PCICL stares him for about twenty seconds. "How does that even-"

"Oh, you just murdered the bit of me that was being controlled. Thanks."

"Eh? Controlled by wha-"

"Don't ask me. I don't have any memory of it." There's a slightly sheepish look in that, one that doesn't quite fit with the kid's features. "I... well, I guess I'll find some way to pay you back."

With a shrug, PCICL goes off to thump more randoms. At least he's not going to feel guilty any more about taking out his rage on the game world, he thinks to himself.

...How very convenient.

* * *

**Notes:**

1. Mako Tsunami (who I've always preferred to call by the manga name of Ryouta Kajiki, for the record) is one of the better looking characters in the game – his good design aside, his 'avatar', as I call it, actually looks at you when he's talking – he doesn't look above your head, doesn't look sideways, none of that. His dialogue is relatively IC, since he was already aggressively gung–ho to begin with. He actally _blinks _at a relatively human rate, even when not talking – a feature only found on a few characters in the game (Ryou, for instance… though they kinda messed up on him, I'll get to that later on). I'm not sure why, but the majority of characters don't blink, which is pretty unnerving.

The shirtless idea comes from his Duelist Kingdom appearance; while the tunic is what he wore in Battle City (and what he wears in TSC).

2. In the game, one challenges Yugi plus each of the five 'named' duelists (Kajiki, Bonz, Ryuuzaki, Haga, Mai, aka the locator card holders) to a duel. They each decline and run off - when all of them have been challenged, then the real game starts up. Joey shows up at this point and says that Battle City has started – but he only does this when you walk into the part of Clock Square that actually has the clock in it.

In my actual playthrough, I snuck back into the bedroom without passing through the area with the clock, and saved the game (thinking that it was a bit like Pokémon in its early game phase). I then ran around like an idiot until I blundered into the area with the clock, and Joey showed up. That's why PCICL takes a detour in the story.

The reason behind PCICL's bizarre way of challenging here (the given story reason and the 'outside world metaplot' reason aside) comes from an interesting glitch in the game, where depending on the area, it's possible to challenge someone to a duel while standing on top of them. In addition:

– Yugi's Grandpa in the Kame Game Shop states that to challenge someone to a duel, you press 'R' (right bumper on a DS). To me, that just _screams _'right hook'.

– Most characters will repeat one bland line, such as 'I got lost' or 'I love this card game!', or similar. However, this attitude does a 180–degree backflip when you actually duel them – every last one of them becomes decidedly aggressive. PCICL hitting them when he wants to duel is a pretty logical explanation for this, even if it's not shown in game.

3. The room looks like that, because of the natural playing field shown when you duel another character. As for the smallness of the monsters, their sizes are relative to the Egyptian gods. Since the Egyptian God sprites are only about the same size as the character sprites in the game, it makes sense for the lesser monsters to be pretty small.

4. Placing a monster face–down and sideways in the TGC, anime, and manga means 'defense mode'. The Sacred Cards has bizarre rulings, though – you have to place your card, then select 'Defense' from a menu to actually put it in facedown defense position. Terrible ruling, and one that caught me out a few times before I figured out – too late – what was going on.

5. Yep, got my butt handed to me in the very first duel, because I made the critical mistake of dueling Tristan first. Given the way I like to write Tristan in my fics (particularly in YGM), I should have expected that he'd be that badass...


End file.
